lgbtwikiaorg-20200222-history
Jean Genet
Jean Genet (19 December 1910 – 15 April 1986) was a prominent and controversial''Contemporary Literary Criticism'', Volume 45 By Daniel G. Marowski, Roger Matuz. Gale: 1987 ISBN 0-8103-4419-X pg 11 French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing. His major works include the novels Querelle of Brest, The Thief's Journal, and Our Lady of the Flowers, and the plays The Balcony, The Blacks, The Maids and The Screens. Life Genet's mother was a young prostitute who raised him for the first seven months of his life before putting him up for adoption. Thereafter Genet was raised in the provincial town of Alligny-en-Morvan, in the Nièvre department of central France. His foster family was headed by a carpenter and, according to Edmund White's biography, was loving and attentive. While he received excellent grades in school, his childhood involved a series of attempts at running away and incidents of petty theft (although White also suggests that Genet's later claims of a dismal, impoverished childhood were exaggerated to fit his outlaw imageEdmund White, Genet: 221). After the death of his foster mother, Genet was placed with an elderly couple but remained with them less than two years. According to the wife, "he was going out nights and also seemed to be wearing makeup." On one occasion he squandered a considerable sum of money, which they had entrusted him for delivery elsewhere, on a visit to a local fair. For this and other misdemeanors, including repeated acts of vagrancy, he was sent at the age of 15 to Mettray Penal Colony where he was detained between 2 September 1926 and 1 March 1929. In The Miracle of the Rose (1946), he gives an account of this period of detention, which ended at the age of 18 when he joined the French Foreign Legion. He was eventually given a dishonorable discharge on grounds of indecency (having been caught engaged in a homosexual act) and spent a period as a vagabond, petty thief and prostitute across Europe—experiences he recounts in The Thief's Journal (1949). After returning to Paris, France in 1937, Genet was in and out of prison through a series of arrests for theft, use of false papers, vagrancy, lewd acts and other offenses. In prison, Genet wrote his first poem, "Le condamné à mort," which he had printed at his own cost, and the novel Our Lady of the Flowers (1944). In Paris, Genet sought out and introduced himself to Jean Cocteau, who was impressed by his writing. Cocteau used his contacts to get Genet's novel published, and in 1949, when Genet was threatened with a life sentence after ten convictions, Cocteau and other prominent figures, including Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso, successfully petitioned the French President to have the sentence set aside. Genet would never return to prison. By 1949 Genet had completed five novels, three plays and numerous poems, many controversial for their explicit and often deliberately provocative portrayal of homosexuality and criminality. Sartre wrote a long analysis of Genet's existential development (from vagrant to writer) entitled Saint Genet (1952) which was anonymously published as the first volume of Genet's complete works. Genet was strongly affected by Sartre's analysis and did not write for the next five years. Between 1955 and 1961 Genet wrote three more plays as well as an essay called "What Remains of a Rembrandt Torn into Four Equal Pieces and Flushed Down the Toilet", on which hinged Jacques Derrida's analysis of Genet in his seminal work Glas. During this time he became emotionally attached to Abdallah, a tightrope walker. However, following a number of accidents and Abdallah's suicide in 1964, Genet entered a period of depression, even attempting suicide. From the late 1960s, starting with an homage to Daniel Cohn-Bendit after the events of May 1968, Genet became politically active. He participated in demonstrations drawing attention to the living conditions of immigrants in France. In 1970 the Black Panthers invited him to the USA, where he stayed for three months giving lectures, attending the trial of their leader, Huey Newton, and publishing articles in their journals. Later the same year he spent six months in Palestinian refugee camps, secretly meeting Yasser Arafat near Amman. Profoundly moved by his experiences in Jordan and the USA, Genet wrote a final lengthy memoir about his experiences, Prisoner of Love, which would be published posthumously. Genet also supported Angela Davis and George Jackson, as well as Michel Foucault and Daniel Defert's Prison Information Group. He worked with Foucault and Sartre to protest police brutality against Algerians in Paris, a problem persisting since the Algerian War of Independence, when beaten bodies were to be found floating in the Seine. Genet expresses his solidarity with the Red Army Faction (RAF) of Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, in the article "Violence et brutalité", published in Le Monde, 1977. In September 1982 Genet was in Beirut when the massacres took place in the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila. In response, Genet published "Quatre heures à Chatila" ("Four Hours in Shatila"), an account of his visit to Shatila after the event. In one of his rare public appearances during the later period of his life, at the invitation of Austrian philosopher Hans Köchler, he read from his work during the inauguration of an exhibition on the massacre of Sabra and Shatila organized by the International Progress Organization in Vienna, Austria, on 19 December 1983.Genet in Vienna By proxy, Jean Genet even managed to make an unlikely appearance in the pop charts when in 1972, David Bowie released his popular hit single The Jean Genie. In his 2005 book Moonage Daydream, Bowie confirmed that the title "...was a clumsy pun upon Jean Genet".David Bowie & Mick Rock (2005). Moonage Daydream: pp. 140–146 A later promo video combines a version of the song with a fast edit of Genet's 1950 movie Un Chant d'Amour (A Song of Love). Genet developed throat cancer and was found dead on 15 April 1986 in a hotel room in Paris. Genet may have fallen on the floor and fatally hit his head. He is buried in the Spanish Cemetery in Larache, Morocco. References Notes Sources Primary sources ;In English * Neil Bartlett, trans. 1995. Splendid's. London: Faber. ISBN 0-571-17613-5. * Bray, Barbara, trans. 1992. Prisoner of Love. By Jean Genet. Hanover: Wesleyan UP. * Bernard Frechtman, trans. 1960. The Blacks: A Clown Show. By Jean Genet. New York: Grove P. ISBN 0-8021-5028-4. * ---. 1963a. Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet. London: Paladin, 1998. * ---. 1963b. The Screens by Jean Genet. London: Faber, 1987. ISBN 0-571-14875-1. * ---. 1965a. The Miracle of the Rose by Jean Genet. London: Blond. * ---. 1965b. The Thief's Journal by Jean Genet. London: Blond. * ---. 1966. The Balcony by Jean Genet. Revised edition. London: Faber. ISBN 0-571-04595-2. * ---. 1969. Funeral Rites by Jean Genet. London: Blond. Reprinted in London: Faber and Faber, 1990. * ---. 1989. The Maids and Deathwatch: Two Plays by Jean Genet. London: Faber. ISBN 0-571-14856-5. * Genet, Jean. 1960. "Note." In Wright and Hands (1991, xiv). * ---. 1962. "How To Perform The Balcony." In Wright and Hands (1991, xi–xiii). * ---. 1966. Letters to Roger Blin. In Seaver (1972, 7–60). * ---. 1967. "What Remained of a Rembrandt Torn Up Into Very Even Little Pieces and Chucked Into The Crapper." In Seaver (1972, 75–91). * ---. 1969. "The Strange Word Urb..." In Seaver (1972, 61–74). * Seaver, Richard, trans. 1972. Reflections on the Theatre and Other Writings by Jean Genet. London: Faber. ISBN 0-571-09104-0. * Spitzer, Mark, trans. 2010. The Genet Translations: Poetry and Posthumous Plays. Polemic Press. See www.sptzr.net/genet_translations.htm * Streatham, Gregory, trans. 1966. Querelle of Brest by Jean Genet. London: Blond. Reprinted in London: Faber, 2000. * Barbara Wright and Terry Hands, trans. 1991. The Balcony by Jean Genet. London and Boston: Faber. ISBN 0-571-15246-5. ;In French ;Individual editions * Genet, Jean. 1948. Notre Dame des Fleurs. Lyon: Barbezat-L'Arbalète. * ---. 1949. Journal du voleur. Paris: Gallimard. * ---. 1951. Miracle de la Rose. Paris: Gallimard. * ---. 1953a. Pompes Funèbres. Paris: Gallimard. * ---. 1953b. Querelle de Brest. Paris: Gallimard. * ---. 1986. Un Captif Amoureux. Paris: Gallimard. ;Complete works * Genet, Jean. 1952–. Œuvres completes. Paris: Gallimard. * Volume 1: Saint Genet: comédien et martyr (by J.-P. Sartre) * Volume 2: Notre-Dame des fleurs – Le condamné à mort – Miracle de la rose – Un chant d’amour * Volume 3: Pompes funèbres – Le pêcheur du Suquet – Querelle de Brest * Volume 4: L’étrange mot d’ ... – Ce qui est resté d’un Rembrandt déchiré en petits carrés – Le balcon – Les bonnes – Haute surveillance -Lettres à Roger Blin – Comment jouer ’Les bonnes’ – Comment jouer ’Le balcon’ * Volume 5: Le funambule – Le secret de Rembrandt – L’atelier d’Alberto Giacometti – Les nègres – Les paravents – L’enfant criminel * Volume 6: L’ennemi déclaré: textes et entretiens * ---. 2002. Théâtre Complet. Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Secondary sources ;In English * Barber, Stephen. 2004. Jean Genet. London: Reaktion. ISBN 1-86189-178-4. * Coe, Richard N. 1968. The Vision of Genet. New York: Grove Press. * Driver, Tom Faw. 1966. Jean Genet. New York: Columbia University Press. * Frieda Ekotto. 2011. "Race and Sex across the French Atlantic: The Color of Black in Literary, Philosophical, and Theater Discourse." New York: Lexington Press. ISBN 0739141147 * Knapp, Bettina Liebowitz. 1968. Jean Genet. New York: Twayne. * McMahon, Joseph H. 1963. The Imagination of Jean Genet New Haven: Yale UP. * Oswald, Laura. 1989. Jean Genet and the Semiotics of Performance. Advances in Semiotics ser. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-33152-8. * Savona, Jeannette L. 1983. Jean Genet. Grove Press Modern Dramatists ser. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 0-394-62045-3. * Styan, J. L. 1981. Symbolism, Surrealism and the Absurd. Vol. 2 of Modern Drama in Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-29629-3. * Webb, Richard C. 1992. File on Genet. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-65530-X. * Edmund White. 1993. Genet. Corrected edition. London: Picador, 1994. ISBN 0-330-30622-7. * Hadrien Laroche. 2010 The Last Genet: a writer in revolt. Trans David Homel. Arsenal Pulp Press. ISBN 978-1-55152-365-1. * Ian H. Magedera. 2014 Outsider Biographies; Savage, de Sade, Wainewright, Ned Kelly, Billy the Kid, Rimbaud and Genet: Base Crime and High Art in Biography and Bio-Fiction, 1744-2000. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. ISBN 978-90-420-3875-2 ;In French * Frieda Ekotto. 2001. "L'Ecriture carcérale et le discours juridique: Jean Genet" Paris: L’Harmattan., * El Maleh, Edmond Amran. 1988. Jean Genet, Le captif amoureux: et autres essais. Grenoble: Pensée sauvage. ISBN 2-85919-064-3. * Eribon, Didier. 2001. Une morale du minoritaire: Variations sur un thème de Jean Genet. Paris: Librairie Artème Fayard. ISBN 2-213-60918-7. * Bougon, Patrice. 1995. Jean Genet, Littérature et politique, L'Esprit Créateur, Spring 1995, Vol. XXXV, N°1 * Hubert, Marie-Claude. 1996. L'esthétique de Jean Genet. Paris: SEDES. ISBN 2-7181-9036-1. * Jablonka, Ivan. 2004. Les vérités inavouables de Jean Genet. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. ISBN 2-02-067940-X. * Jean-Paul Sartre. 1952. Saint Genet, comédien et martyr. In Jean genet, Oeuvres Complétes de Jean Genet I. Paris: Éditions Gallimard. * Hadrien Laroche. 2010. "Le Dernier Genet. Histoire des hommes infâmes". Paris: Champs Flammarion; nouvelle édition, revue et corrigée. ISBN 978-2-0812-4057-5 External links * "Genet, Jean (1910–1986)" From glbtq: Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, & Queer Culture * William Haver, "The Ontological Priority of Violence: On Several Really Smart Things About Violence in Jean Genet's Work" *Patrice Bougon: academic research, bibliography, papers, news, symposium Category:1910 births Category:1986 deaths Category:Directors Category:Gay male prostitutes Category:Gay writers Category:Men Category:People from France Category:People prosecuted under anti-homosexuality laws Category:Poets Category:Screenwriters Category:Writers from France